In the past, you may have had to choose between someone you agree 50% with and someone you agree 80% with, and so you'd be friends with the 80%. It's your "best available friend."

Now with the Internet, you can choose to befriend the 80% agreeable irl guy, or you can befriend the 99% agreeable guy online. The 20% of disagreements irl feel completely intolerable, because you're not forced to cooperate for survival. This also contributes to strenuous familial relationships.

RT: https://poa.st/objects/a3cbbc29-f6ac-49c0-b525-3c072740149a

A friend is someone who'd rather spend his time with you than anything else. In the past, there really wasn't any other outlet to spend your time. Now, it's a valuable commodity targeted with precision and monetized by companies. By putting a price tag on time, you have millions of dollars spent trying to take it from you, and you can't get that time back.​

Who do you think would win, some relatively pleasant person who wants quality time, or the latest million dollar attention grabber? That's why there are no friends beyond coworkers now.

@veff
I am slowly starting to get into a community, but seriously, finding people who are unironically willing to spend time with you feels like tearing your skin off.

@LukeAlmighty@gameliberty.club @veff@poa.st

The OP looks like some ordinary, run of the mill "phone bad" bullshit. But broken families and atomized individuals are the exception in other parts of the world, even though social media and wireless are cheap and accessible.

I suspect that the powers that be want us to internalize "phone bad" to the extent that is distracts from other problems, and because uncensored communities are the solution to those problems.

@KuteboiCoder @LukeAlmighty "Phone bad" is a gross caricaturizing of my point, but I'll roll with it. If the Internet were to disappear forever tomorrow, would social life and community become better or worse?

Worse because even before the internet I didn't have friends

@Dudebro @veff @KuteboiCoder
Exactly the same opinion here.
There was nowhere to go before the modern always-online social setting. Now, I have something to work with, but before? It was a true hell.

@LukeAlmighty @Dudebro @KuteboiCoder I guess my point doesn't work when interacting with 100% true-and-honest autists. My life was significantly better before everyone got smartphones. I had Internet at home, but I specifically avoided getting a phone until... 2017? I didn't want the life of the online to destroy the life of meatspace, but eventually everyone else hooked up to it and there was nothing to be found except online. If that went away, eventually everyone would have to crawl out of their room and be human again. I miss that.

@veff @LukeAlmighty @Dudebro @KuteboiCoder
That's a general trend, not only with social interaction.
The best times were the 0's, where you could do things on the internet, but there was still the old way around - as an internet autist, it increased your options .
Today many things (banking, ordering things, booking hotels, finding dates,....) are only possible over the internet, while the old ways of access (if they still exist - big IF) are blocked by hordes of retarded Pajeets in call centers.
@quercus @Dudebro @KuteboiCoder @LukeAlmighty A few years back I had a near-total Internet sabbatical and it was incredibly eye-opening. I'm glad I was overseas at the time because infrastructure was still legacy. I bought train tickets at ticket counters, I checked my back balance at ATMs when I took out cash, and social events were still posted at the town hall. Life was simple, but everyone I interacted with was >60y/o.
Now I'm back in the US, it's a lot harder to do things the analog way, but I want to do it. I've planned another personal Internet blackout for November to avoid election talk, but threads like these make me want to expedite that to include the rest of this month.
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